Every time I see them argue it they argue time between days. Only recently have they begin to try to argue days can be switched around or days are special creations. It’s all equally backwards though and ignores both science and the Bible.
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So on what day was fruit trees, or trees in general created? What was created before them and after them? Does that making with science too?
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That gets more into genre, and Revelation is apocalyptic literature, and a vision of John’s as communicated through an angel, however that works. In any case, it still uses John’s words, vocabulary, grammar, and knowledge to express whatever he heard or saw in his vision to the Greek of the day. I don’t think God said “Write this down, and maybe someone a couple of thousand years from now might make sense of it.” In any case, not an easy book to understand so I claim no great understanding of it.
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I hope you realize this Gap Theory is not my theory. I’m just explaining what the theory suggests.
The Gap Theory does not follow the six days of creation enumerated in the Bible. It suggests that God created the heavens and Earth (Verse 1). Then Verse 2 says the Earth was “formless and void.” If you look at most Bibles, there is a footnote for the word “was” that says “or became.”
So, that word difference is important because “became” suggests something caused the Earth to become formless and void, because we know from Scripture that God creates everything for a purpose and thus wouldn’t create a void and formless Earth.
The Gap Theory says that in the gap between Verse 1 and 2 there are millions of years of a pre-six-days-of-creation world that includes dinosaurs, and that some cataclysmic event caused their extinction — and that event also caused the Earth to become formless and void. It’s then that the enumerated six days of creation begin.
I was raised on the Scofield Gap Theory (although I didn’t know what it was called) and still have my Scofield Reference Bible. This is probably why I had no difficulty in accepting evolution. I think it only fell out of favor due to the “death before the fall” to which the modern YEC movement clings so tightly.
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The creation days are our common decent timeline. God made microbes including bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes on days 1 and 2. Moses would not know what microbes are so they are not mentioned. I do believe they are the “beasts of the field” to help “till” the ground and get it ready for planting (order things are mentioned in Genesis 2 is different as its in story mode). The plants on day 3 were our common decent and precursors to modern plants. Fungi were created on day 4 but again Moses would not differentiate them from plants.
Why aren’t birds and bats “things created to fly”?
So which day were whales created on according to your model?
First fish 530 million years ago
First land animals (arthropods, or creeping things) 425 million years ago
First tetrapods 370 million years ago
First flowering plants 140 million years ago
First birds 125 million years ago
First grasses 120 million years ago
First cetaceans ~45 million years ago
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Caveat…this answer is given BEFORE i have read any of the others. I wanted it to be my own personal opinion and theology without being influenced by what i consider to be the many theologically unsound ideas of others here.
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The God of the gaps theory has been rebuffed so emphatically it isnt an option. I do not need to quote any references for this as the issues with that view are extensive and found all over the internet. The entire problem with it lies mostly on the complete lack of any other internally supported biblical statements. Lets face it, if one is a Christian because they follow the Word of God (the bible), then what is the point of making stuff up that isnt even in the bible?
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Your query about the extinction of dinosaurs without the extinction of man is rather unusual…
Firstly:
2 Peter 2:5
if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others
Matthew 24:38&39
For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they were oblivious, unil the flood came and swept them all away
Genesis 7
17For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and the waters rose and lifted the ark high above the earth. 18So the waters continued to surge and rise greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters. 19Finally, the waters completely inundated the earth, so that all the high mountains under all the heavens were covered
Genesis 9:28
After the flood Noah lived 350 years…
Genesis 11.10
This is the account of Shem’s family line. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.
Luke 17
27People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
28It was the same in the days of Lot: People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
I would argue that when one reads the above texts, and considers the overwhelming consistency of the bible statements regarding the legitimacy of the literal reading of the Global Flood account, its theologically impossible to be honest about any claim that the gaps theory is real, or that the writings of Moses in this instance are an allegory!
The nail in the coffin for the flood allegory claim is the New Testament book 2 Peter. Firstly, Peter tells us he recieved his revelation from the writings of the prophets, as an eyewitness to the ministry of Christ, and direct revelation from God (which we know, from numerous biblical sources of divine revelation in the old testament, most definately included visions).
Peter, the founding leader of the Christian church itself, speaks very specifically of a literal flood, relates it to both the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah, and the casting of Satan and his angels out of heaven.
The apostle Peter clearly saw the flood, destruction of Sodom and Gomorah, and casting Satan out of heaven all as literal events and he very clearly relates the literal reading of these bible passages to salvation.
Finally, i suggest that you spend some time listing on paper the ages of significant persons in the bible. Instead of listening to naysayers, actually get some paper and go through the bible and write them down… from Adam to Noah, Abraham to king David, and even the apostles.
After doing the above, i very much doubt you could still honestly believe that only some of these recorded lifespans in the bible are real!
The reality is, the only reason we have the corruption of TEism is because science says so. I think most TEists would tend to agree that they believe Moses description of Creation and the flood are allegorical simply because it must be so given the claims of naturalism.
The problem for TEism is, there are some very significant biblical statements that are against it that cannot be ignored indeed even statements that relate the literal result of salvation to the literal flood account (such as 2 Peter).
Secondly:
Even secular society believes that climate/environmental change (either natural or man induced) is the cause of most extinctions…and that includes dinosaurs. I see no theological dilemma here as its actually supportive of the corruption and consequence of sin on the entire creation.
Footnote of sorts…
I included the passage from Luke for a very important reason. If the flood of Noah (like Creation account) is just an allegorical story, then what do we make of the writings of Luke given he recorded Christs ministry. Are we going to then claim Luke’s writings are purely allegorical and therefore so was the ministry of Christ?
Food for thought!
Thanks for your detailed reply. Let me be clear: I’m not pro-Gap Theory. I honestly don’t know the answer, but I can definitely see climate change as the cause of extinction.
I was just presenting the things I regularly hear, from the everyday Christian, not from those like you who’ve no doubt studied this topic in-depth.
As I’ve said, for me, it really doesn’t affect my beliefs, no matter what the answer is. I just am concerned about those from Gen Z, who seem to ask more questions than previous generations.
But, like I said, thanks for your efforts in explaining your position.
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Revelation is a very easy book to understand, however, you have to read it in conjunction with the book of Daniel otherwise things go pear shaped very quickly.
A key factor in understanding Revelation is to ensure one does not read the entire book sequentially…it is not written that way (hence the importance of the book of Daniel).
It also is of significant importance that one has a deep knowledge and understanding of the Old Testament Sanctuary and its services before reading Revelation.
Obviously with O/T Sanctuary, the gospel takes on completely a new meaning and this further sheds light on on it.
Contrary to what almost the entire Baptist movement seems to believe (and do wrong), Revelation is not a step 1 to step 10 book…it regularly jumps backwards and forwards through the timeline at the heart of its message.
Its a common decent with mankind creation order. Birds and bats were created to fly but at the time of our common decent with them they were both land animals.
Whales were created on day 6. They are land mammals that returned to the sea.
Day 3
Common decent with the first grasses - 1.6 bya
Common decent with the first flowering plants - 1.6 bya
Day 5
Common decent with the first fish - 470 mya
Day 6
Common decent with the first tetrapods - 355 mya
Common decent with the first birds - 325 mya
Common decent with the first land animals - 325 mya
Common decent with the first cetaceans - 95 mya
You can find an interactive tree of life explorer here:
Hey, I’ve actually done that — read Daniel alongside Revelation. I’ve read a lot of books on it, mostly like 35 years ago while in college. I was mesmerized by it back then. Not as much today. I’m just in a very different season of my life.
thats wonderful. Daniel is important because Nebuchadnezzars dream takes us from the Babylonian captivity right through until the end of time (the second coming of Christ).
As you would therefore recall, the book of Daniel gives us an exact time line from his time to the incarnation of Christ and explains the state of the world power from the end of the Roman empire (the last single world power - legs of iron) through to now - feet of iron and clay “some strong and some weak”).
So we have a prophetic timeline to the birth of Christ…this isnt literal or arbitrary as proven by the 3 wise men visiting Mary and Joseph. They got this information from the history of captivity of the Israelites in Babylon and Persia…as a result of Daniels influence in historical writings of those two kingdoms many centuries before.
I mentioned the Old Testament Sanctuary service because it has significant implications for the resurrection of Christ. The Wave Sheaf offering in the sanctuary service prophesied the resurrection of Christ EARLY on the Sunday morning (rebuttiing the claims of a full 3 days and 3 nights in the grave theology). This is important because it shows that Christ was not raised from a dead a spirit…nor did he ascend into heaven as one (Acts chapter 1 “this same Jesus…”)
“Why is the above even relevant?” you might ask
Well, thats because the 4th commandment tells us “in six days God created the heavens and the earth but on the Seventh Day he rested”.
Many Sunday worshipping Christians attempt to claim that we are no longer under the old covenant but under a new one, however, Christ spent 3.5 years of his ministry teaching us how to follow the Sabbath commandment (he worshipped in the temple every sabbath)…Christ kept the Sabbath. Its stupid for a teacher to teach something so important and not expect these lessons to be consistently applie by all those who follow. The disciples and apostles all kept the Sabbath commandment!
The Sabbath commandment is another bible theology that supports the literal creation account and given at least two apostles (Peter and Luke) also link Christs message with the flood account, its pretty hard to make any claim that the creation and flood accounts are just allegories designed to promote arbitrary moral principles. Clearly they were documented in the Bible as real events!
Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
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I’d say that "It’s not clearly detailed in the Bible” is the first step towards “something theologically sound”.
“Glossed over because we kind of accepted that God shared the things He wanted to share” is the next step towards a theologically sound answer.
I once found that interesting, then I learned Hebrew, and the gap conjecture just doesn’t fit the grammar; 1:1 and 1:2 aren’t separate statements, they’re a unit.
Not really; that’s a later view that got imposed on the text – I couldn’t give a summary of how we got there, I do know that to get ex nihilo from the Old Testament writings it’s necessary to go elsewhere than Genesis.
To get the force of the Hebrew that should be rendered “God said, 'Light – BE!” It’s the referent behind Paul’s statement that God called to things that didn’t exist and ordered them to exist.
But that also doesn’t work because of the literary types the Genesis writer used – whether ‘royal chronicle’ nor temple inauguration, the concept is that before God’s command light didn’t exist. In the royal chronicle genre, calling light into existence is a blow again the chaos of the darkness of the great deep; in the temple inauguration, it’s sort of like turning the lights on so things can get started.
I’ve heard that one as well, but again that treats 1:1 and 1:2 as separate.
Translators have been being a bit dishonest for a very long time, assuming that the vowels in the texts we have available are correct: the first vowel of the first word should be an “ah” sound if the meaning is “In the beginning”, but that’s not the vowel we have – the vowel we have is actually silent, vocalized as a schwa only when necessary to speak the word, and with that vowel the word takes on a temporal sense of “when”. It’s not an easy concept to grasp since it does something that English (or any other language I know) can’t do: when we say “when” we get something like “When God began to create”, but the Hebrew verb is a third person singular that in English has to be “he created” – but it has that “when” concept attached to “beginning”.
Yeah – they didn’t.
Now for that “something theologically sound”: it really isn’t detailed at all because God wasn’t interested in sharing something that would only have the purpose of satisfying the curiosity of people several millennia later. In fact the point of the first Creation account isn’t what was made when; it actually has three points: YHWH-Elohim conquered chaos and darkness and organized His kingdom and is king over all; He built His own temple, filled it, and then set humans as the “statue” representing Him; and all the Egyptian gods are just things made by YHWH-Elohim. It’s about theology, not history, not science!
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And none of that changes anything I said and it’s equally, if not more wrong than what it started out as. Yes… anyone who has dealt with creationism for any amount of time is aware of the various forms of the gap theory. Aware of things like the firmament was an ice dome that melted creating the flood and all the other weird stuff, most likely, most of us had long heard of it.
Take the gap theory. Ruin and restoration. States millions or billions of year occurred between those two stages. Then everything got wiped out. Nothing survived right? Then everything got recreated in six days.
When we look at the fossil record, we see none of this.im not disagreeing because I misunderstand it. I’m disagreeing because I understand it.
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Then there aren’t any flying creatures at all since none of them were flying creatures when they shared a common ancestor with humans. No ancestor to humans was capable of flight as far as I am aware. You seem to be arbitrarily picking which groups of species count as flying creatures.
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Those would be simple eukaryotes. They only became plants later. This would exclude them as being counted as plants according to your other criteria.
The first land animals were arthropods, and that happened 10’s of millions of years before the first tetrapods. The common ancestor shared with arthropods would have been very simple bilaterians from Cambrian/Pre-Cambrian times. It was also those arthropods that gave rise to the first flying animals.
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Or one of his videos.
I also recommend this, about “ex nihilo”:
I looked that one up, and found this: “The Master of Divinity is a 75-hour degree program”. I can’t find whether it requires a thesis with a defense, so it probably doesn’t have one.
That’s a really thin M. Div. program; it should probably be a Bachelor of Divinity. The M. Div. programs I’ve familiar with are 130-hour or more and require at the very least two years of reading in Koine Greek, often four, and often at least two years of biblical Hebrew, and require researching and writing a master’s thesis that has to be approved and defended; some require an additional theological language (German or Latin) – in short, they’re a regular graduate degree program. If you want some actual theological education you’d do better to find something more substantial than what Anderson offers.
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And that fits the pattern of ancient near eastern temple inauguration stories: three days building, three days filling.
Absolutely. It strikes me that if a person has a friend in another country they will take the effort to understand that friend’s culture including worldview as well as how that friend writes, i.e. literary type, but when it comes to the scriptures so many people don’t even treat them with that level of respect. The Old Testament writings especially are effectively “letters” from a (very) foreign country with a (very) foreign language and essentially alien literary types within an essentially alien worldview, but many people don’t seem to care about actually understanding them via getting to know the ‘friends’ who write them.
Exactly. And if we were talking about a good friend, we would go to the effort of understanding all those things so we could grasp what our friend was talking about in a story or poem or whatever.
Only because the first Creation story isn’t about science.
If people would just let scripture be what it is and stop trying to read it as though it talks science, a great deal of what gets argued about just vanishes.
This is speculation verging on science fiction. It also ignores what the text actually says.